We all have a default greeting response. This is the response you naturally give when people ask you how you are when they great you. Typically it goes something like this: Person 1, “Hello! How are you?” Person 2, “Hi, I'm fine. How are you?” Person 1, "Good"; the “I'm fine” and "Good" are default greeting responses. We usually don't put any thought into them, saying them is simply habit.

Years ago I set out to change my default greeting response. I learned the importance of speaking positive things over my life, even when I didn’t feel positive, so I consciously changed my default greeting response from “good” to “great”. Whenever someone asked me how I was doing my response was always “Great!” Over time this became habit and “great” is now my default, it comes out naturally because I practiced it. Most people have gotten used to it but every now and then someone is surprised by my “Great!” because they are so used to hearing responses like “good”, “fine” and “ok”.

Now that my default is “great” and I’ve maintained it for a few years I’m looking to take things up a notch. For about a year I’ve been testing out other words I can say and the reactions that they prompt. I’ve tried “wonderful”, “outstanding”, “awesome”, “fantastic” and “excellent”, almost all of them result in a surprised reaction from others. In some cases I’ve even had to explain why I gave such a dynamic response to such as basic question and, after my explanation, people usually become intrigued by the idea of changing their default greeting response. I’m not yet sure which word I will start using but rest assured very soon my new response will be one that makes you smile.